This is the Winter 2018 course discussion blog for and by UCLA students enrolled in LGBTQ Studies 183: Queer Arts in LA.
This course includes a creative component. When this course was first offered during the Fall 2012 quarter, the students researched queer artists who have a significant connection to Los Angeles. Then created a collaborative website.

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Sunday, October 28, 2012

Questions for Jeanne Cordova

Jeanne Cordova's honesty in When We Were Outlaws makes a tale of political and personal lives not only inspiring but demonstrative of the rewards of meshing the two. After reading this book, I am shown why quiet activism in one's own personal life is never sufficient in making audible rumbles in society. I have always had an immense amount of respect for activists, who possess a species of conviction that is downright glorious, but after experiencing this memoir, that respect has grown into a deep reverence for that conviction which I am still grasping to find in my life.

It seems as if activism is a safe haven for those of us who are in disagreement with any thing. It is a place of mind and body where people are free to fight for what is right and against what is wrong. Cordova shows that activism is through action and not only action, but visible and audible action. There is a certain tenacious compassion that is required in order to do what Cordova has done and continues to do. Furthermore, as Cordova's experiences unfold in the memoir, it cannot be denied that movements move as a result of people like her. The Lesbian Feminist movement did not make waves thanks to a bunch of dissatisfied women sulking around in their kitchens. No, it took foot soldiers, like Cordova, who were ready to give their lives to the life of activism so that equality would prevail.

1) Is it possible for anyone to become an activist and is it possible now? What does being an effective activist take as far as results are concerned?

2) While the notion of eliminating gender from the lemma is puzzling, since the whole point is to achieve gender equality, is it not more satisfying to eliminate gender altogether and institute a more universal equality, which is inclusive of every aspect of a person? Or at the very least, if not eliminating gender constructs altogether, then instating a limited form of relativism, which is not specific to the category of gender, but general to all defining categories?